


The Seventh Wave

by st_aurafina



Category: Aeon Flux (2005)
Genre: F/M, Yuletide 2006
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-06
Updated: 2011-07-06
Packaged: 2017-10-21 02:32:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/pseuds/st_aurafina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I am the seventh Trevor Goodchild, and I don't feel remotely magical."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Seventh Wave

It is a beautiful morning in Bregna. Trevor Goodchild has awakened without the need for an alarm because the air smells like apples, and the crisp almost-chill breeze against his skin reminds him of the clean, sharp mornings after snow had fallen in the city-that-was. It never snows in Bregna, and rain is not scheduled for another two weeks, but he remembers what it was to wonder about the weather, to select clothes just in case of a change, to tuck the ends of his woollen scarf inside his coat and brace himself against the wind.

Freya will call for him soon, and he will dress, rehearse his speech, and go about the business of his day as he has done for longer than anyone knows. For now, though, he is content to lie on his side and watch the garden through the veil that lies over his bed, listening to the gentle hum of engineered bumblebees as they hover over flowers that are very nearly roses. He stretches under linen that is soft and supple, and wonders why he has slept so dreamlessly. He can't remember a night where he hasn't reached for Catherine, and wakened with a catch in his breath, hard and yearning. It is a thing he has learned to expect - with each generation, each time he is reborn, there comes an age when his body begins to remember the movement and the rhythm of making love to her, as one remembers a dance from a long time ago. From that time on, there is little undisturbed sleep, as the body that has never held his wife mourns her loss and aches for her presence. But today there is a curious absence of sadness, and Trevor is at a loss to explain what has filled the place where he keeps his grief. Perhaps, as Oren has promised again and again, he has accepted the loss.

Later, as streams of data scroll past on all four walls of his laboratory, it occurs to Trevor that perhaps, rather than accepting the loss, he has instead lost even more - that the memory of his wife has been somehow corrupted, that he has forgotten some part of her. The idea ruptures the tranquility of his morning, and he feels his knees folding underneath him. The smooth glass tiles press against his face, and the data flickers against his eyelids as he desperately recites the litany of memories that is handed down from one Trevor Goodchild to the next: the colour and texture of her hair flowing against his lips, the quirk in her mouth when she is making fun of him, the arch of her long and elegant feet as they move through the salt water of a forgotten ocean.

Freya is suddenly at his side, taking his pulse, calling for security, and as he struggles to sit upright and reassure his assistant that there has been no assassination attempt, he realises that he is referring to Catherine in the present tense. It is unheard of: no Goodchild has experienced memory in this way. Trevor cannot understand it, and there is only one person now with whom he can discuss such an incident, Oren's patience for this indulgence having faded several generations ago.

Trevor and Oren designed the Relicle, as they did all things in Bregna, with form and function intertwined, a thing of beauty filled with secrets. Inside the honeycombed structure that soars over his city, Trevor finds that the Keeper is being unusually enigmatic.

"Something has changed, inside of me." Trevor often speaks to the Keeper. Four hundred years ago they were colleagues and friendly rivals in the scientific community, and although the Keeper has retained far less of his humanity than the Goodchild brothers have, Trevor still retains the habit of seeking him out to discuss new ideas and developments. There are fewer new ideas with each generation, and he wants to optimise the value of his own inspiration.

The Keeper strums his hands across the strings of the great computer that holds the codes of the five million people of Bregna and smiles. It is an insouciant expression, at odds with the frail and papery face. "The children of generation Seven A come of age today. In the world-that-was, the seventh child was often regarded as magical."

Standing close to the edge of a stone platform, Trevor frowns; the Keeper is not given to whimsy - he has been, in all his incarnations, a sober and methodical being, one who understands the value of Trevor's work. "I am the seventh Trevor Goodchild - I don't feel remotely magical."

The Keeper vanishes with a sound like breathing, and reappears on Trevor's platform, standing beside him. "You cannot plot the future of the human race on a chart, Trevor Goodchild. Myth and fable pass along the generations in just the same way as height and hair colour. The seventh generation is different. I know this because all the generations have passed through my hands."

"You haven't given me an answer, old man." Trevor's lip is curled; he is irritated and the unfamiliar agitation is stirring his mind. He wants very much to be in his library, researching, reviewing, reading fairy-tales.

The Keeper smiles again, and fades away. From somewhere in the depths of the giant shell Trevor hears the old man's voice drifting though the sterile air. "Then you haven't asked the right questions."

When Oren finds him in the cherry orchard, Trevor is surrounded by open books, the pages fluttering and turning in the mannered breeze. He is lying on a blanket, watching the Relicle skim over the city wall, the long tails twisting and fluttering in its wake. Trevor pulls Oren down beside him, and throws an arm over his brother's chest to hold him still, before he can speak of council meetings and missed speeches.

"I will always remember her, Oren."

Oren shifts uncomfortably on the blanket; he dislikes talk of this kind. Trevor leans up on his elbows, and watches the sky. "I will save the world for her. We will meet again, and I will know her." He sees Catherine smiling as she moves, wraith-like between the slender trees. "And she will know me."


End file.
